Chris Faytok/The Star-LedgerGiants head coach Tom Coughlin yells at an official after a Mark Sanchez fumble was overturned on a challenge during the second half of today's win over the Jets at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford.

This was a victory for the Giants’ way of doing business, and the man who embodies that better than anyone limped off the field today with a throbbing left leg and a head held high.

Tom Coughlin loves to quote military leaders, and in his finest moment this season, he even looked like a general returning from the battlefield. A nasty collision left him hobbled, but after watching his team shut up its loudmouth neighbors with a 29-14 victory, he couldn’t stop smiling.

“Never better!” he practically yelled when asked how he was feeling. “Thanks for asking!”

That was as close as Coughlin would come to gloating late this afternoon, but if anyone deserved to pound his chest, it was him. His team was the best in this corner of the NFL world, by a mile, in the one game it mattered. His team was hungrier, better prepared and more focused in a season-on-the-brink matchup with the Jets.

Rex Ryan did the talking. Coughlin did the winning. Did he have any message for the rival coach — the Patrick Ewing of football coaches when it comes to undelivered guarantees — who did everything but set his résumé on fire in the days leading up to this one?

“We won the game,” Coughlin said. “That’s the statement.”

There will be more statements in days and weeks to come, and that likely includes one from the Giants announcing a contract extension for their head coach. Owner John Mara wasn’t going there today, because he said it would “just lead to more speculation.” But the look on his face said everything.

The Jets had classlessly covered up the Giants three Super Bowl murals with black curtains, but Mara was beaming like they had just won a fourth. They get to host the Cowboys with a division title on the line next week, and maybe Mara’s mood will change if the Giants get their doors blown off.

That’s not likely — and Coughlin, for what he’s done to hold this team together, deserves to come back. He’s taken an undermanned, injury-riddled team to within a victory of the postseason, and it certainly doesn’t hurt that he ripped the tent off the circus act that shares MetLife Stadium.

“What do you think? It does,” Mara said when asked if this victory means more to him. “Given everything that was at stake, given all the noise coming out of Florham Park, yes it does.”

Plenty of that noise, it should be noted, came from East Rutherford, too, including in the aftermath of this game. Brandon Jacobs couldn’t stop himself from running up to Ryan and yelling “time to shut up, fat boy” — the coach had to be pulled away from the running back — an unnecessary gesture even if, well, he’s right.

None of the noise came from Coughlin. It was Ryan who couldn’t help himself, behaving like a chef expecting a four-star review before the salad was served. “Certainly we were the better team in (my) first two years,” Ryan said. “We made the playoffs, went to the championship game. To say a team’s better than you that never went to the playoffs is ridiculous.”

Just one problem, Rex: Coughlin never said that. He never said anything close to that. In that way, this was more than a victory for the Giants. It was a victory for the old-school way of conducting yourself as a head coach. It was victory for class.

Ryan was supposed to be the master motivator, the one who bragged about his ice-cream socials with the offense each week. Coughlin was supposed to be the guy his players tuned out, the clock-watching dinosaur pushing these gym-teacher concepts like “accountability” and “teamwork.”

Nothing the Jets said was tacked onto some bulletin board, but that doesn’t mean Coughlin didn’t motivate. Justin Tuck gushed about the way Coughlin pulled him aside during the week, asking him if everything was okay in his private life and then made a simple request.

“He asked me to give him what I had,” Tuck said, and of course, the defensive lineman gave everything in his finest game of the season. The Giants defensive front was all over quarterback Mark Sanchez, who’ll be an easy target as the Jets pick up the pieces here.

But no one should forget this: Sanchez dropped back to throw 59 times. That’s on the coaching staff. Maybe it’ll lead to Ryan firing offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer, but some of the blame has to come back to the man in charge, too.

Ryan spent another offseason making promises he couldn’t keep, talking about the Super Bowl he was going to win. Imagine how Coughlin felt when he showed up at his stadium today and saw the mural for the one he did win covered up with a curtain.

Of course, that’s the beauty of Coughlin. We’ll have to imagine. “I won’t mention what I thought,” he said, handling himself in victory the way he did before kickoff. With his head held high. With class.